Where is Dr Phil when you need him?

I spent the weekend attending, among other things, a birthday party.

The older brother of birthday child is great mates with Grizzlewick, they have known each other since older brother (let's call him Neil) was born, about ten months after Grizzle.

When we arrived at the birthday party, Neil grabbed Grizzlewick by the arm and insisted on playing with him, leading him around the party and ordering him around, etc.

About an hour later, I was having a discussion with one of the other parents at the party. “Grizzlewick and Neil are all over each other,” I noted. “Yes,” she replied. “My poor Andrew can’t get a look-in”.

I reported this conversation to Neil’s father, a little later in the day. “I know,” he said. “Paul complained about the same thing last time they were together and was quite pissed off that they weren’t playing with Jane more”.

So, at this point, the count is:

Two happy children playing with each other

Two “excluded” children

Two pissed-off parents

One completely oblivious Gigglewick.

At first I was a little bit upset that Grizzle and Neil were being perceived as exclusionary, but now I can’t help but feel a bit crabby. Neil and Grizzlewick see each other about three times a year, but speak of each other constantly and truly LOVE each other.

Grizzlewick, in his defence, has spent the sum total of about three hours in his entire life in the company of the other children in question – I doubt he could name them let alone pick them out of a crowd.

Even more irking, is that I have the sneaking suspicion that this is less to do with the kids and more to do with the parents.

Nevertheless I do worry:

Am I becoming one of those “cool gang” mothers that facilitates the merciless targeting of bullying and name-calling?

Should I do something about this exclusive play, and if so, what?

The boys of history

Last weekend was a weekend for fabulously happy firsts in our little family.

For context, we have discussed in past posts the tendency of a few of the writers of this blog to give their children nicknames involving the word "Moo". In my case, the younger of my boys is almost never address without "moo" being suffixed to his name, or to some other word entirely. He very patiently answers to anything, including "Moosey-moo".

Anyway, picture if you will a very stupid mug which has a ceramic cow's head stuck to the base (inside the cup). This ridiculous feature is undetectable when the mug is full of coffee, with the result that unsuspecteing guests often get a small surprise when, after a few sips of coffee, a cow's head mysteriously appears.

As you can imagine, I find this utterly hilarious.

I happened to be drinking from this mug while having breakfast with my boys last Saturday, and they too were quite fasscinated as first the ears, then the eyes and nose, and finally the whole head of the cow appeared. The pused regularly in eating their Rice Bubbles to lean over as close to the cup as possible and say "moooooo".

As a matter of history, that was our very first "Cherub moo"

This weekend also saw the first time the boys had taken a ride on a real steam train, thanks to the good folks at steamrail.com.au.

And it was a most pleasant afternoon jaunt from Mitcham to Camberwell and back. I recommend this to anyone.

Finally, and most wonderfully, this Sunday night was the night when, after three years of saying "Goodnight Bundle, sleep sweet, I love you", finally, finally, I heard a little voice say "I love you too".

In the heavens, the choirs sang and the angels danced, and in that darkened bedroom my heart ached with joy, and I knew that I would not trade that moment for all the riches in the world, for nowhere on God's earth was there a happier man than me.

Things you should not do if you wish to avoid the wrath of a four year old

1. Suggest that watching Bananas in Pyjamas for the fiftieth time might not be as exciting as going for a bike ride.

2. Refuse to go to the local toystore to buy a "shake and go" car.

3. Fail to take him to visit his friends, even though they are currently interstate.

4. Eat the last Furry Friend after he has gone to bed.


That last one makes Grizzlewick particularly "fwuwious".

A Wet Weekend

Miss M, #23, valiantly losing the Grand Final

Misses I & O a little perplexed

Miss O augmenting her immune system

Gumboots no longer required

They call me Dr Worm

Moving out of a rental property inevitably involves much of the gardening, and not the fun, creative type where you get to nurture beautiful things as they grow, but more of the type where you pull up ever single stone in the badly constructed path out the back of your chaotic rental property garden and rip out the roots of the cooch grass and various weeds that keep growing up between the stones.

This is not particularly fun but last time I found myself doing this, the exercise was much improved by the presence of my beautiful older son.

Bundle not only helped with the weeding, he also spent a pleasing amount of time ensuring I took gardening safety seriously. As a result, the lifting of each stone was accompanied by constant reminders along the lines of “Be careful daddy, there are ants under there. Be careful. [beat] Are you being careful Daddy?” and so on.

We also found a number of worms, and after a brief initial hesitation, Bundle accepted my assurance that worms were friendly and not at all dangerous and we had to be nice to them because they help the garden grow and other such things that parents find themselves, sometimes to their own surprise, saying on these occasions.

More surprising, and infinitely more pleasing, was Bundle’s understanding of the world of worms, summed up by the following conversation which took place shortly after I had lifted a worm out of the way so as not to squash it when replacing a flagstone, and the worm had taken a very brief look around before burrowing straight back into the ground:

Bundle: Oh, where did he go?

INC: He went back into his home

Bundle [considers this for a moment]. Yes. He’s had a lovely day, but it was time to go home now. Hmmm. Yes.


Happy third birthday, Bundle. You are truly gorgeous beyond description and your very proud parents love you endlessly.